Pakistan's two biggest political parties yesterday signalled they would back President Pervez Musharraf's call for national unity amid the looming crisis over threatened US military action against neighboring Afghanistan.
Despite concerns that a conflict could consolidate the military's grip on power, both the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) indicated they would not support protests by Islamic parties.
The president, who has offered the country's airspace and logistical support for any US attack, said in a national television broadcast on Wednesday night that he had been forced to choose between saving Pakistan or saving the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan.
Musharraf urged the country to put the national interest first and resist the Islamic parties' calls for Pakistanis to side with their fellow Muslims in Afghanistan.
"I'm the chief of the Pakistan army and my first priority is the defense of Pakistan. The rest follows after," he said. "Some elements want to take advantage of this [crisis] to pursue personal or party agendas. They want to create anarchy and damage the country."
PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar acknowledged Pakistan had little option but to go along with the international community or face diplomatic isolation and the worsening of a severe economic crisis.
"We have to support the international fight against terrorism for the maintenance of law and order," Babar said.
Raja Zafarul Haq, the chairman of the PML, said US attacks would carry enormous risks for the security of Pakistan but also recognized that Musharraf had little choice but to side with Washington.
"It [a military attack] will have long-term implications and Pakistan may end up facing a situation on two fronts. The eastern border [with India] is already unsafe and now the western border [with Afghanistan] will be a problem.
"But obviously Musharraf took this decision under duress."
On the streets of Peshawar, not far from the Afghan border, hundreds of Islamic militants yesterday burned effigies of US President George W. Bush.
They shouted "Long live Osama bin Laden" and vowed a jihad, or holy war, against both America and the Pakistani government.
Additional protests were planned for yesterday and militants have called a nationwide strike today.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS